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Thursday, February 13, 2014

Terre des Hommes by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Finally….the
second five-stars reading of this year—thanks to Monsieur Saint Exupéry! Terre des Hommes is also known as Wind, Sand, and Stars (English
translation), although I think the exact translation should have been ‘the
earth or the land of mankind’. ‘Wind, sand, and stars’ makes it looks like a
childish nature-philosophy book—almost like The
Little Prince—but in fact Terre des
Hommes is much more than that. This is a book which brings us back to our
nature as human being. Living the routines makes us forget the true value of
life itself. We tend to continue living because… well, because we are alive.
But do you ever ponder, why are you living? For what purpose do we struggle to
survive—apart from our instinct? Or, if you want to go deeper, why do we have
the instinct to survive? We are going to die, sooner or later, aren’t we?

Terre des Hommes is Exupéry’s
autobiographical book, or memoir is more suitable. In this book he tells us his
experiences as a pioneer pilot for French airmail company: Aéropostale. In the days when aviator technology was far less
sophisticated, and much more dangerous, only men with exceptional courage would
have liked to flight an airplane, let alone the airmail carriers, because the
risk was very high. Not only that the routes have not thoroughly mapped—it was
often these pilots who did the first mapping—but the danger of being stranded on
the Sahara; the risk of dying from thirsty, or of attack from the dessert
rioters, were always facing them. But instead, Exupéry found an inspiring joy in
his job.

It is in the
tranquil solitary of the universe did he found the overwhelming peace whenever
he was flying the airplane. The limited means of technology forced him to keep
an intimate relationship with the sky, sun, moon, stars, sea, clouds, wind, and
storm. But his real lesson came when his plane crashed on the Sahara, where Exupéry
and his mechanic-navigator Prévot were stranded with almost no food and drink
to survive. They were nearly died of thirst and had several mental delusions,
before finally found and saved by a Bedouin. His near-death experience taught
Exupéry of what must be the most important thing of being alive.

God created
man as His image and bestowed him Life. Now, it is our duty to keep it sacred,
because we live not for and by ourselves; we—the creation—are part of the
universe. And so, our lives are valuable and meaningful. It is our duty to pass
on our humanity to next generations. When Exupéry was nearly dying of thirst,
it might have been much comforter for him to lie down and embrace death. But instead,
he kept struggling and pushed his limit, because that is what a human being
should be. And although someday our existence would be vanished from the earth,
the legacy of our humanity will still exist through our descendants; through
the spirit and the value we have inspired them.

I think I
could never give enough credit to Exupéry and this book through this review
alone. If you only knew how many dog-ears this book must bear, because almost
in every pages I found treasures hidden beneath the beautiful poetic prose
Monsieur Exupéry has woven into this memoir. I am more blessed because Forum
Jakarta-Paris through French Embassy in Indonesia has decided to translate this
book directly from the original French edition! Thanks for bringing this
magnificent piece to our reading atmosphere; what an inspiring experience to
read it!